


Shatt Week 2017

by platonicharmonics



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, First Meetings, Galaxy Garrison, Jewish Holts (Voltron), M/M, Marriage Proposal, Reunions, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Slow Dancing, Trans Shiro (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-15 00:16:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11794464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platonicharmonics/pseuds/platonicharmonics
Summary: A compilation of seven prompt fills for my most beloved OTP as part ofShatt Week.





	1. Day 1 - Liberation/Reunion

Shiro spasmed and gasped for air as he stared, walleyed, at empty space and distant nebulas. He wasn’t in Black anymore, and that alone terrified him, but there was no sign of Voltron or any of the Lions, no sign of Zarkon or his mech, no dreadnaught, no Castle, not even _debris_ – and the worst part was the stars. These stars were _not_ where they had wormholed; he didn’t think he recognized them at all.

“Guys?” he tried over the comm. “Coran?” he tried again. “Keith? Pidge? Lance, Hunk? Allura? _Anyone?_ Can anyone hear me?!”

Silence.

Shiro took a deep breath and pulled up the suit’s diagnostics to display on the inside of his helmet. The overview showed that everything was functioning normally. Frowning, he pulled up the comm analysis and absorbed the moving graphs and data feeds for a moment before he noticed the list of synced contacts. Beside each picture of his teammates’ faces was a red, flashing _OUT OF RANGE_. That wasn’t even supposed to be _possible_. 

At a loss for anything else to do, he closed his eyes and tried to focus on reaching out for Black. If there was one thing in the universe he could count on, it was her. Her mind was always nestled somewhere at the back of his consciousness, a steady and reassuring weight that he could always call on and embrace. All he had to do was feel for her and she would be-

His blood ran cold.

Shiro forced himself to take three deep, shuddering breaths. His suit diagnostics helpfully informed him that his heartrate was elevated. Dismissing the display, Shiro looked carefully at his surroundings. Or… lack thereof. Each star that surrounded him was small, far too small, and a quick scan proved that the nearest one was a light year away – all the others could be measured in parsecs. Even if he fired up his jetpack and put thrusters at maximum, there was no way it could propel anywhere close to light speed without him either dying of dehydration first or exploding after colliding with a stray rock.

He was stranded, alone, in deep space.

“Great!” he chirped, crossing his arms and legs as he slowly rotated in place. “Great. That’s just great.”

Seeming to sense his predicament, his suit helpfully displayed a small, flashing icon of an exclamation point in a triangle labeled “distress beacon.”

Shiro bitterly considered just taking his helmet off so he could die with dignity rather than be picked up by a Galra patrol and plunged back into his own personal hell. Slowly, he raised his hands to the clasps and closed his eyes.

He saw the kids. Flashes of Lance’s wide, wondering eyes, Hunk’s happy stimming, Pidge’s shit-eating grin, Allura’s quirked eyebrow. Keith’s intense expression, his mouth forming the words _Nothing’s going to happen to you_. 

He saw Coran, saw the crinkles that formed around his eyes and the curve of a smile under his moustache when he got Shiro to laugh after a shutdown. He saw Samuel, his expression split into a wide smirk after he cracked a particularly father-like pun and ruffled Shiro’s hair.

He saw Matt, wide-eyed and terrified, desperately reaching out to him and crying out his name as Shiro was dragged away from him for the last time.

His hands lowered from the clasps by centimeters, then by inches, then fell away altogether. He activated the distress beacon.

\--

Shiro had no idea how much time had passed. It felt like a day’s worth of hours, but it very well could have been minutes. It didn’t matter, because he saw something pass over and block the light of a cluster of stars. He jerked to attention and strained to see what it was. Using his suit to scan it, his helmet quickly outlined the dark object and filled it with a lit-up grid. It was a _ship_ , but not like any Shiro had ever seen before – it looked like a hideous amalgamation of scrap metal that someone slapped together after seeing a picture of what a ship was _supposed_ to look like for half a second, bulky and asymmetrical with over a dozen antennas sticking out of it in various angles. He figured it would classify as cargo-class by Garrison standards – approximately 300 meters long and weighing 360,000 tons. Space pirates, maybe? They definitely weren’t Galra.

The distance tracker on his helmet display showed that it was getting closer. 1,000 kilometers. 500 kilometers. 100 kilometers. Once it was one kilometer away, it beamed on massive spotter-lights from its bow and drowned him in harsh white light. Shiro shielded his eyes with his arm and watched as it silently drifted closer, slowing down, then stopped about thirty meters away. An airlock opened and two figures stood in the dim light, feeding out a length of hose. Shiro reached out and grabbed it, then waited as they slowly reeled him in.

The moment he was across the threshold, the airlock closed and squealed as air was forcefully pumped back into the room. The metal shuddered for a moment, and suddenly the gravity slammed the three of them back onto the floor – his two rescuers were braced for it and landed on their feet, but Shiro fell backwards and landed hard on his rear. He laughed it off and opened his mouth to thank the two who rescued him, but when he looked up, he was staring down the barrel of a gun.

“Don’t move if you don’t want your head blown off,” the one holding the gun snarled. The one behind him roughly grabbed his wrists and clapped them together into a pair of cuffs, then snapped some kind of band around his prosthetic that made it tingle. Shiro tensed and stared long and hard at the one standing in front of him. These people, whoever they were, wore dark gray pantaloons tucked into slender metal boots; these seemed to go over a tight form-fitting space suit of flexible interlocking plates that covered their upper bodies and attached to their gauntlets and helmets, which were also scuffed metal. The helmets, in particular, looked like old 20th century Earth gas masks. Dark hooded cloaks rested heavily on their shoulders. Something in Shiro’s gut insisted they were familiar.

The inner doors of the airlock opened and Shiro was grabbed roughly and forced to his feet, then shoved forward. “You’re making a mistake,” he said quietly.

He was shoved again, causing him to stumble. “Your Galra threats won’t work on us, traitor scum.”

“Gal-?!”

This time he was forcefully kicked and sent careening into the middle of the next room, which was fairly small and cramped, filled with a dozen of the mysterious uniformed anti-Galra figures of all shapes and sizes. He caught himself and tried to stand up straight, but the one that loved pushing him grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him onto his knees. He saw the other still pointing their gun at the weak point between his helmet and chestplate out of the corner of his eye.

“Please,” he tried, “I mean you no har-”

“Silence,” snapped a low alto voice. A large, hunched figure stepped forward. “We do not know what trap you laid, _Galra_ , but we’ve already jumped to hyperdrive. Your reinforcements won’t be coming.”

Shiro shook his head and tried to keep from shaking. He kept seeing Zarkon’s shadowy face on a screen behind them but he knew it wasn’t real. It _wasn’t_. “I am _not_ Galra. I oppose them just as you do. I’m a Paladin of Voltron-”

A smattering of hyena-like laughter filled the room, _low and gruff, mouths full of sharp teeth, eyes narrow yellow slits-_

“-. . . myths, fool.” Who was speaking? “The quicker you stop your games, the quicker we can get to business. You think we don’t know about your Galra arm?”

“I… I…” He stared intently up at the ceiling light. White. Not purple. Not purple. He forced himself to look forward again, into the darkness of their masks. He hated being on knees. _He hated being on his knees_. “I’m telling the truth. You can contact them or the Blade of Marmora and verify my identity, please-” he began to stand up.

Immediately, ten guns were drawn on him amidst a cacophony of “ _Don’t move! Don’t move!_ ”s. He saw the Galra closest to him flip his gun and raise it over his head. Shiro prepared himself to lunge, baring his teeth.

“STOP.”

Everyone froze. Shiro froze. He turned his head to look at the single figure, smaller than the others, hurriedly making his way towards him from the back. Once he reached the front of the crowd, he hesitated a long moment, then walked up to him and kneeled down. Shiro could only stare, sinking back down to the floor. The man raised hesitant, shaking hands to his helmet, which then desperately sought out the clasps and undid them. His helmet unsealed and was whipped off, tossed aside; Shiro sucked in a quaking breath as the man bowed his head and ripped off his gauntlets and mask.

Shaggy, strawberry blonde hair fell out in waves, and in the next moment he was staring into a freckled face that he knew like he knew his own soul. He felt those same shaking, bony hands cup his face, felt thumbs caressing his cheekbones.

“Shiro,” Matt whispered, tears welling in his eyes and spilling over. “ _Shiro_.”

“ _Matt_ ,” Shiro sobbed. 

Matt smiled, a soft, beautiful thing, and wiped away Shiro’s tears as they fell, occasionally carding his fingers through his hair. He heaved a trembling breath and choked, “ _I thought you were dead_.”

Shiro couldn’t break the cuffs that held his hands back, so he did the only thing he could think of. He surged forward and kissed him.

Matt gasped and suddenly kissed him back just as hard, cradling his head. Shiro closed his eyes and opened his mouth, inviting Matt to deepen the kiss, which he did instantly – they went back and forth like that, giving and taking as much as they could, breathing each other in.

Distantly, Shiro heard someone deactivate his cuffs; he immediately gathered Matt up in his arms and sank into his warmth, running his prosthetic down his back while he worked his left hand into his hair. Matt grinned and giggled, filling the kiss with teeth, so Shiro instead kissed his nose, then both of his eyelids, then his forehead; Matt pulled his head down and pressed their foreheads together, before they both simply latched on to each other in a hug and let themselves be held, letting the reality of the other sink into their bones.

All the other rebels must have made their way out of the room to allow them their privacy, because they were alone. Good. Shiro wanted this moment to belong only to them.

“I can’t believe I found you,” he said, quietly.

Matt leaned back long enough to give him a skeptical side-eye. “Uh, excuse me? This is my ship. _I_ found _you_. Dick.”

Shiro smirked. “Ah. That explains why this thing is so fugly.”

“Shut up.”

“ _You_ shut up.”

Matt crushed him back into a hug and they both laughed. After a while, he nuzzled deeper into Shiro’s hold and softly said, “I missed you, jerkface.”

Shiro tucked his nose into Matt’s hair and closed his eyes. He smiled. “I missed you too, asshat.”


	2. Day 2 - Angst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a blink, Shiro had lunged forward and sliced the sword deep through the meat of his knee; Matt screamed and fell back as the aliens leaped away from him, and suddenly Shiro – or this rabid animal that _looked_ like Shiro – threw aside the sword and pounced on him, screaming into his face, _“I want blood!”_
> 
> Matt whimpered and trembled. It was like reality broke.

“All right, you vermin, out of your cages!”

Matt jerked his head up from where he had been picking at the weird material of his uniform. As one, the metal doors of the prisoner cells opened all along the hallway. A Galra guard was stalking past the doors, occasionally banging his nightstick on the frames, yelling “Move it! Line up outside and be quiet!”

After sharing a wary look with his father and Shiro, the three of them climbed to their feet and filed out into the hall along with all the other hunched and whimpering aliens. With only some confusion, the prisoners managed to line themselves up in a straight row and face the same direction – Matt, Samuel, and Shiro claimed a section where they could stay together, standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Two more Galra guards and a dozen sentries filed through the door at the far end of the hallway and began spacing themselves out along the line.

“Check out that last guy,” Matt murmured, “he looks like Handsome Squidward.” Shiro snorted and covered his mouth.

“Boys,” Samuel whispered, curtly.

“With all due respect, Dad, if I don’t laugh at our current situation I’m going to freak o-”

“ _I SAID QUIET_ ,” the guard from earlier roared, pointing a claw straight at Matt from his position near the end of the line. Matt met his cold yellow glare for only a moment before ducking his head and swallowing, hard. His father gave his hand a soft, reassuring squeeze.

As soon as the guards finished inspecting the prisoners and making sure they were silent, a bulky, towering Galra in red and yellow armor strode into the room with huge furry chinchilla-esque ears. Matt would have giggled despite himself if not for the intense synthetic eye ringed with red filling his right socket and sharp-toothed smirk that made his stomach churn with unease.

As the big Galra walked past them, the guards saluted him and hurriedly greeted, “Commander Sendak.” The big guy – Sendak – ignored them, making his way to the end of the line, where he immediately leaned down into the face of the red crocodile-looking alien, who lifted their chin and gave a low hiss.

Sendak grabbed them by the throat and barked a laugh, shaking them a little. “That’s the spirit I _like_.” Without another word, he shoved the poor alien towards a sentry, which grabbed them by the arm and roughly marched them towards the far door. Sendak moved to the next alien, who was hiding their face in their hooves and crying, shrinking away from him. He spared them only a glance before he moved on down the line.

Matt looked at his father and Shiro with wide eyes and an arched brow, but they both were hyperfocused on Sendak’s every move, staring unblinkingly with clenched jaws. Matt looked back and saw him forcing an alien’s mouth open to look at their teeth before shoving them towards a sentry.

He continued that way, grabbing and prodding and squeezing the prisoners, throwing some of them towards a sentry while leaving many of them behind with a disgusted look on his face. He reached Shiro far too soon and Matt _felt_ rather than saw his father tense up and stand just as rigidly as he was.

Shiro had schooled his expression into a blank mask and stood there in a relaxed stance that was painfully forced. Sendak wrapped his hand around his shoulder and squeezed the muscles there, then felt down his chest – Shiro cringed – and his legs. He stood back up and said, “Look at me.”

Shiro blinked and glanced upwards.

Sendak wrapped his hand around Shiro’s head and picked him up until he was standing on his toes; Matt’s hand latched onto his father’s wrist like a vice just as Shiro’s hands flew to Sendak’s wrist and clawed at it. “I said… _look at me_.” Shiro locked onto Sendak with an acidic glare and a snarl. Sendak smiled. “I thought so.”

Shiro was shoved into the arms of a sentry, which began to pull him away. He looked back at them both as he struggled, terrified, and Matt started hyperventilating while Samuel made a low, pained noise.

Sendak was looking at his father, now, pulling at the wrinkles on his face and feeling his joints. After only a few seconds, he moved on to Matt, who clenched his fists and trembled, grinding his teeth. Shiro was halfway to the door and his father was gaping after him.

“A little smaller,” Sendak mused, then huffed a laugh when Matt tried to shrug him off. “But it’ll do.”

All of a sudden Matt was thrust towards a sentry and his father cried out, “ _No!_ ”

“ _Dad!_ ”

Matt strained towards him even as he was frog-marched away, watching in horror as his father grabbed on to Sendak’s arm and shook it, yelling “ _Where are you taking them?!_ Take me! Take me! _Don’t take them from me_ , please!” and Sendak elbowed him in the stomach, making him fall to the ground.

Matt screamed out _“Dad!”_ at the same time Shiro screamed _“Sam!”_ but they were helpless; they could only watch as Samuel writhed on the floor and Sendak carried on like nothing happened until they were dragged through the door and out of sight. After an age of pain and panic where they were transferred onto a different ship, they were finally thrown one after another into a new cell and had the door slammed in their faces.

\--

Shiro stared at the wall.

It was all he’d done since they were forced into this new hellhole. Matt fretted and fidgeted and wrung out the ragged cloth of his uniform’s outer layer and wandered around the cell. Their cell-mates, who were all other aliens Sendak had picked, could only stare on in pity. Matt wasn’t entirely sure what enabled them to understand the Galra’s language and vice versa, but whatever it was, it didn’t translate prisoner-to-prisoner. It made sense, in a kind of cold and cruel way; language barriers served as great deterrents for riots.

And it was exactly why he so desperately wanted Shiro to talk to him, to _look at him_.

Matt walked straight up to Shiro and pressed his forehead against his chest, hugging himself. “Shiro.” After a long moment, Matt felt Shiro’s chest expand with a deep breath, then felt his arms slowly wrap around him and his nose tuck against his neck. “I’m scared, Shiro.”

“…I know.”

“I miss Dad.”

“…I know.”

“Do you think they killed him?”

Shiro’s hold tightened. “…No,” he whispered, but it sounded more like a plea. Matt’s shoulders hitched. “I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”

Matt pushed himself away from Shiro’s chest to look into his face. His eyes were red, wet, and dark. “Shiro, that freak _grabbed_ you by the _h_ -”

“Not that,” Shiro ground out, ducking his head. “Well, yes that, but everything. All of this. I fucked it all up.”

“What…? What are you even _talking_ about?”

Shiro let go and turned his back on him, shoving his hands into his hair. “On Kerberos. I didn’t protect you. I’m the pilot, I’m supposed to protect my crew, I should have kept an eye on the scanners or _looked up_ or _something_ , and then if I hadn’t gotten scared when he grabbed me we’d all still be together, but no, now we’re in this fucking _nightmare_ because of _me_.” He gasped in a wet breath.

Now it was Matt’s turn. Slowly, he pressed himself against Shiro’s back and wrapped his arms around him, holding him firmly around his middle. “This was nobody’s fault, Shiro.”

“ _Sure_.”

“What could you have _possibly_ done differently? Huh? What magical bullshit could you have pulled on that moon to save us from a hyper-advanced alien warship? How could you have acted differently when that stupid Barney-looking motherfucker tried to pop your head off? You can’t control your _survival instincts_ , idiot.”

“We shouldn’t _be here_.”

“Yeah, well, we are!” A tear escaped and slid down Matt’s cheek. “And now you’re all I have. And I need you. _Please_.”

Shiro quickly turned around and crushed him into a hug, whispering ‘ _I’m sorry_ ’ over and over again as Matt cried into his chest.

When the two of them finally cried themselves out, Shiro rubbed soothing circles into Matt’s back and said, “Okay. We’re okay. We’re gonna be okay. As long as we have each other, we can make it through this. I’m not going to give up – not on you, and not on your father.”

“Good,” Matt said, and there was a note of steel in his voice. “Because I’m not giving up on _you_.”

\--

The next day, there was a lot of activity, both among the prisoners and among the guards. After their morning slop – and it really was slop, thick and brown and gelatinous – the cell doors opened again and a score of sentries ushered them out and cuffed them at the wrists and ankles, then shuffled them down the corridors into the wide, cavernous lower deck of the ship. All of the prisoners were murmuring in their native languages to each other, milling around and shuffling about. Matt and Shiro did everything short of linking their arms together so they wouldn’t be separated.

Eventually, the ship rumbled as it did something, and then a colossal hangar door slowly opened to a massive interior – whether it was a ship or a space station was impossible to tell. Like cattle, the sentries herded them through the bottle-neck and down a ramp into a dimly-lit, cavernous arc. They were suddenly assaulted with waves of odors, mostly that of blood and urine and sweat.

“Where _are_ we?” Shiro wondered aloud.

< _Our deaths_ ,> came a voice into their heads. Matt and Shiro jerked and looked wildly around for whoever spoke. < _I am behind you_. >

They looked behind them and spotted an alien that looked half-gecko and half-xenomorph, with no visible eyes or nose; they had a jagged mouth and walked on back-kneed legs like a satyr with a long blunt tail. They were covered in bright yellow scales, except for their head, which seemed to be made of a hard carapace.

Matt’s eyes went round in awe. “How are you speaking to us?”

< _Spores_. >

As Matt wrinkled his nose, Shiro asked, “You said you know where we are?”

< _This is Emperor Zarkon’s personal dreadnaught, the heart of Galra civilization. We are in the gladiator pits_. >

“Wait…” Matt hedged. “Like… just passing through?”

< _No. All those captured by the Galra who are chosen as fighting stock are transferred to the pits, where they are butchered in the Arena for Galra amusement_. >

Matt turned and began walking backwards. “All those who are chosen? So- so what happens to prisoners who aren’t chosen? What’s done with them?!”

_< A far more merciful fate than us poor souls.>_

“Please,” Shiro insisted, “his father wasn’t chosen, but we were. We don’t know what happened to him.”

_< I apologize, young ones. I did not know the relation when I heard stories of what happened on your ship. Your father was restrained and returned to his cell, but that is not uncommon for species separated from their young during the Choosing and is considered normal. He will go with the other unchosen to the work camps.>_

Matt looked at Shiro and beamed. “He’s alive. He’s _safe!_ ” A thunderous rumble made the ceiling above them shudder; small clouds of dust trickled down and the faint sound of cheering filtered down to them. Shiro looked up and frowned, his expression pinched. Matt blinked. “Oh, yeah,” he said softly.

A robotic, monotone voice came over the intercom, “ _Please enter the gates in groups of ten. When the quota is filled, move to the next gate_.”

Prisoners slowly began trudging through the doorways labeled _01, 02_ , and onwards – when ten passed the threshold, a heavy metal door slid shut behind them. Their telepathic companion wandered away into the next gate without a word, leaving Matt and Shiro to themselves.

“Shiro.”

“Hm.”

“I’m fucking terrified.”

Shiro didn’t say anything, just kept staring around them at the sentries and then back at the entrance. Apparently they were taking too long, because a sentry extended an electrified rod and aggressively advanced towards them. Shiro snapped out of his thoughts and snatched Matt by the arm, hurrying them through the last gate, which closed behind them. Their cuffs suddenly flickered out of existence and they were free to join their other eight comrades where they were huddled near the top of the ramp, where the light and sound of the Arena washed over them.

For nine grueling sessions, they were forced to stand and listen as a prisoner from one of the gates was released to fight in the Arena. For nine grueling sessions, they were forced to listen to the sounds of battle as it dragged on for either seconds or minutes until it ended in a blood-curdling scream and a massive roar of triumph from something that sounded _huge_. For nine grueling sessions, they tracked the sound as it got closer and closer to being their turn.

Finally, the rotation of the sound had reached their gate. The sentries that barricaded them in began mobilizing.

“I’m not going to make it,” Matt panted, hyperventilating. “I’ll never see my family again!”

“You can do this,” came Shiro’s soft, encouraging voice from behind him, but Matt’s entire world swiftly narrowed down to the sentry that stepped forward and _pointed the sword straight at him_.

His ears started ringing.

Suddenly, a loud bellow sounded behind him and a strong, violent hand seized his shoulder; Shiro threw him backwards into the crowd of aliens as he charged the sentry and grappled with it, tearing the sword out of its hands. Matt stared on, thunderstruck, as Shiro turned back towards them – towards _him_ – with rage in his eyes and yelled, “ _This is my fight!_ ”

In a blink, Shiro had lunged forward and sliced the sword deep through the meat of his knee; Matt screamed and fell back as the aliens leaped away from him, and suddenly Shiro – or this rabid animal that _looked_ like Shiro – threw aside the sword and pounced on him, screaming into his face, “ _I want blood!_ ”

Matt whimpered and trembled. It was like reality broke.

But… but then all the aggression and violence melted off Shiro’s face as if blown away by a breeze, leaving only an agonized sadness. “Take care of your father,” he said softly, then gasped as robotic hands seized him and forcibly dragged him away.

Matt burst out of his shock to desperately reach forward and try to grab his hand where he was reaching for him, but Shiro was already out of his reach, and an elderly grey alien swooped down and held his shoulders. “No,” he choked. “No! _Shiro!_ ” He couldn’t lose him. Not like this. _Not like this_. 

“ _Shi-ro!_ ” he screamed, and he kept screaming, even as the alien tried to soothe him, even as two sentries picked him up and carried him away, back the way they had come, back to the ship and away from this place, away from the Arena, away from Shiro – forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo, boy, this prompt gave me so much trouble. It took me the better part of the day to stop second-guessing myself.


	3. Day 3 - Bonding/"I've never been so happy!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro’s head was tilted up into the wind, his hair billowing and winding around his neck and shoulders like snow drifts. His face, wrinkled and weather-worn after fifteen years as a Paladin, was slackened into an expression of pure bliss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let these old men _rest_.

The air around the Kamogawa River was cool and crisp as the autumn wind sighed through Kyoto, blown in from an incoming storm that flickered and rumbled ominously on the horizon. The sky was already dark and gray from the sun setting behind the clouds, and all around them the lights of the city glowed and reflected off the water in a colorful aurora of yellows and blues. Rows upon rows of packed-together restaurants and hotels with raised lantern-strung balconies stood on one side of the river, while a thick line of colorful trees in an array of reds and oranges and golds swayed on the other. The small clusters of people that had been walking or lounging along the riverbank and brick walkways began making their way back into the city, pulling their jackets close and hurrying into a jog.

Matt and Shiro were slowly walking down the path that stretched between the river and the trees, hand-in-hand. Matt was frowning, keeping one careful eye on exactly how worried the people leaving the river looked and how close the storm was. A sudden gust of wind swept down the waterfront; they stopped walking and Matt shielded his face, but in doing so, he saw Shiro reach up and pull his long white hair out of its messy bun. He turned to fully appreciate the sight.

Shiro’s head was tilted up into the wind, his hair billowing and winding around his neck and shoulders like snow drifts. His face, wrinkled and weather-worn after fifteen years as a Paladin, was slackened into an expression of pure bliss. Matt supposed he didn’t look too different – he’d earned his fair share of wrinkles and scars on the front lines, along with the salt-and-pepper streaks that were steadily winning the war against his strawberry blonde. More than that, though, he imagined he wore a similarly blissed expression while looking at his partner.

And what a word that was – “partner.” How long had they known each other? Twenty-five years? Twenty-seven? Since the eighth grade, when Shiro was introduced to Matt as his new roommate by the Galaxy Garrison councilor. They had been thirteen, then, and they were forty now, and in all those years they’d gone from being friends to best friends to lovers to… well. Partners. Matt didn’t really know how to describe it. Soulmates probably came closest – their friendship and their romance morphed into this beautiful thing where they simply felt _loved_ , and they wanted to live and love together for the rest of their days. Partners.

Things changed, however, when the Voltron Force finally retired from the universe in a new renaissance of peace and prosperity and Queen Allura declared that they could go home. The Blade of Marmora scattered across the stars to relearn how to be civilians in the colonies, Slav returned to his homeworld and his long-lost husband, and the Paladins – as well as Matt and his father – returned to Earth.

After a long and tearful farewell to Allura, Coran, and each other, filled with promises and blood-oaths to visit, they spread across the seas – Hunk returned to his family in Samoa, Lance returned to his family in Cuba with Keith as his fiancé, and the Holts returned to their family home.

The mere thought of his mother’s face when she saw her husband and her children again was heart-shattering, but her pain quickly gave way to euphoria. In the months that followed, the Holts did little else but smother each other and try their best to find a new normal. Shiro was included, of course – without Keith, he had no one else and no _where_ else to go – but he was always so… sad.

Nightmares plagued him just as they plagued Matt, but Shiro was struggling with something beyond that. It was a family effort to get him to eat, and when he wasn’t staring blankly out a window at the desert, he was out alone on one of his “long walks” that he didn’t return from until late into the night. Eventually Matt managed to wrangle it out of him late one night after their tenth screaming match.

“ _I don’t have a purpose anymore!_ ” Shiro had yelled, then leaned onto the bed and hung his head. “ _Everything I dedicated my life to… For decades… Is gone. I don’t know how to live. I… I don’t know how to live if it’s not to fight_.”

So Matt booked a flight to Japan.

In Kyoto, they revisited Shiro’s childhood home, as well as the Shinto shrine that bore his parents’ names. They went to the Buddhist temple where Shiro’s father used to take him as a child, and watched for hours as the monks finished an intricate mandala – then wiped it away. Then they went to Shiro’s old ballet studio where he danced when he was still Takara rather than Takashi; they walked straight into Mako Sakurai, his beloved instructor, and the two of them had a tearful reunion of their own.

“Thank you.”

Matt was pulled out of his reverie by Shiro’s voice. He brushed his hair out of his face and saw Shiro staring at him, smiling softly. “Huh?”

“For… for doing this. For everything.”

Matt grinned. “We haven’t even gotten to the climax yet.” A raindrop fell on his nose and he jolted. “Which is right now, I guess.” Immediately, Matt took Shiro’s hand and dropped onto one knee as the rain began to patter around them. He had to hurry. “I know we’ve never been particularly formal about any part of our relationship, but I want to do this for you. For us. I want us to create a future for ourselves.”

Shiro blinked at him in bewilderment. “Matt, what-”

“For almost half of our lives, we’ve been at the heart of the greatest war the universe has ever known. We used to dream about it ending one day, and it did. Before that, we used to dream that we’d travel amongst the stars, and we did. Now I do nothing but dream about spending the rest of my life with you.” Thunder rumbled and the rain began falling harder. “I don’t care where we go. I don’t care if it’s on Earth or on a colony or if we keep traveling the cosmos for the rest of our lives, but I want a future with you, Shiro. I want us to find our peace. Maybe on the other side of a fuckton of therapy, but I want us to find our peace.”

The rain fell even harder. It was getting difficult to make out Shiro’s expression. Matt raised his voice and continued, “Maybe we’ll open a business selling lion-themed pastries. Maybe we’ll write a book and live off the royalties. Maybe we’ll start a family. We can do anything we can think of, so right now… right now, I’m doing this.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a box. He opened it, revealing a wide jet-black ring lined with sparkling gems from a dozen worlds. “Takashi Shirogane, will you marry me?”

Matt’s only response was the crashing of thunder and the roaring of rain. For a horrible moment, he thought he’d messed it up somehow – Did he go too far? Was this not what Shiro needed? – but then he noticed Shiro shaking, his face buried in his prosthetic. Matt immediately stood up and pressed closer until he could hear his sobs. “Babe…? Shiro, what’s wrong?”

Shiro gasped in a breath. “Nothing.”

Matt shook his head. “It doesn’t sound like nothing.”

“I just…” he lowered his hand and beamed at Matt through his tears. “I’ve never been so _happy!_ ”

Matt huffed a laugh before he was almost knocked off his feet with the force of Shiro kissing him. He dropped the ring, but Shiro grappled for it and hurriedly shoved it onto his ring finger without breaking the kiss.

Eventually, Matt came up for air and wheezed, “So is that a yes?”

Shiro only rolled his eyes and took his hand, pulling them into a run, splashing through the rain and the puddles back towards their hotel like the couple of children they once were, their peals of laughter drowning out the rain, and Matt swore in that moment his smile was the brightest thing on Earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This originally started out as a 5+1 and then about a dozen other common tropes until _this_ grew out of my hands and onto the page. I don't exactly know what happened, but... I like it.


	4. Day 4 - Free Day (Dancing)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Matt dangerously overworks himself, Shiro takes action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a couple days off from writing because I was exhausted and felt terrible and I just _didn't want to write._ Forcing myself to write wasn't working, so I decided to just... wait until I wanted to again.
> 
> Fortunately, that was the case today - I felt a lot better and decided I'd use my free day to make a bit of a sequel to Day 1. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it ♥
> 
> (P.S. If you appreciate ambiance, play "[Engine Control Room](https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/spaceshipNoiseGenerator.php)" and "[Radio Chatter and Static](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQnPUt8rZHA)" while reading and adjust their levels to whatever makes you feel most cozy.)

“Hey, you.”

Matt glanced over his shoulder for only a second. “Hey.”

Shiro sighed and straightened himself from where he’d been leaning on the doorway, taking stock of the room. Matt’s office as chief engineer on the flagship of the rebel fleet was about the size of a large garage, lined with counters along the walls that stopped only at the door, with a huge metal table in the middle of the room; not an inch of their surfaces were visible, covered in a seemingly disorganized whirlwind of papers and blueprints and mechanical parts and half-finished constructs. The entire room was gray and dreary, made up of a ridged metal floor and metal walls strung with pipes and wires, lit only by a handful of fluorescent lights placed periodically on the perimeter, basking the room in a pale, dim glow. The electronics in the room were huge and bulky and looked like they were taken straight from Earth’s 1980s – several box computers sat in the corners with green text and patterns on black screens, and Shiro was pretty sure that was a CB radio roosting in the middle of the far counter emitting faint white noise and indistinct murmurs. 

His only comfort against the thought that the rebels were keeping Matt in a depressing retro dungeon was that the rest of the rebel fleet looked the same, if not worse – the entire resistance was built off of scavenged scraps and makeshift tech that was too basic for Galra scanners or comm buoys to detect. It was genius, really – and Matt was responsible for planning and coordinating all of it.

It was why Shiro hadn’t seen Matt in bed for three days.

Shiro grabbed hold of the empty sleeve of his nightshirt to keep it from catching on anything – he’d already taken his prosthetic off for the night – and made his way over to Matt, taking care not to step on any stray bolt with his bare feet or trip on his sweatpants. Once he reached his side, he bent down to rest his chin on the shoulder of his armor and prompted, “Whatcha _do_ -in’?”

Matt made a low groan and rubbed at his eyes, setting down the strange black box he was dissecting. “I’m trying to figure out ways we can repair the dreadnought we found and make it battle-worthy without taking too much of a hit on our resources. It’s already going to be a massive commitment of manpower from the brass, but with this thing being a husk from an extinct culture, I don’t fully understand their technology yet and I can’t start drawing up plans without knowing how it even _works_.”

“Oh, wow, really? Sounds like something you should sleep on.”

Matt shrugged Shiro’s head off his shoulder with a grunt. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

Shiro frowned and leaned back against the table. “You’re gonna be, if you keep this up.”

Matt’s brows formed an angry V and he went back to work on the box. “You don’t understand. Everyone’s counting on me. If we add a dreadnought to our forces, we would finally have something that could punch through the main fleet and open the door for our cruisers to engage. We won’t be limited to dogfights with frigates and fighters anymore, we could launch a frontal assault. It’s our chance to turn the tide of this war.”

“ _Voltron_ will turn the tide of this war.”

“I don’t want Katie anywhere near this. Or Keith, or any of those other kids. You guys may have attacked Zarkon’s dreadnought twice, but you almost died _both times_ , and outside of that you haven’t been fighting anywhere even close to the front lines.” Matt’s hands started working faster, scratching at the seams of the box and dismantling it with forceful _snap_ s. “It’s bad enough that Prince Lotor and his generals diverted from us to the kids, but if we end this fast enough, not only would they not have to fight anymore and Katie would be out of danger but I could finally find Dad and we’d liberate all the camps and stop any more races from being wiped out and reunite children with their f-families and- a-and-”

He quieted when he felt Shiro drape himself across his back and wrap his arm firmly around his middle. “Shhhh,” he whispered, “shhhh… Breathe…” He took in a slow breath as Matt shook and sucked in a gasp, then held it for two seconds before slowly letting it out. Matt followed him, struggling at first, but eventually their breathing synced up and slowed down. In, hold… then out. In, hold… then out. Matt finally let his breathing return to normal and gently placed his hands against Shiro’s forearm.

“Dance with me.”

Matt turned his head to look over his shoulder at Shiro, bewildered. “What?”

Shiro took a step back and gently spun Matt around to face him, keeping his hand firmly on Matt’s hip. He smiled, soft and small. “Dance with me. C’mon.”

“But…” Matt shook his head slightly. “There’s… there’s not even any music.”

“Then we’ll make it up.” Shiro pulled Matt closer until they were chest-to-chest, then slid his hand to the small of Matt’s back. He shrugged his stump. “Humor me.”

With a quiet huff that might have been laughter, Matt put his right hand on Shiro’s hip and raised his left to his shoulder. Shiro’s eyes twinkled, and the next thing Matt knew, they were slowly swaying, gradually working their way around a circle to nothing but the sound of the distant engine rumble, whispery static, and occasional soft murmurs of voices over the radio as bored soldiers and technicians made small talk in the middle of the night cycle.

“I know what it’s like to put the weight of the universe on yourself,” Shiro said quietly, catching Matt’s gaze. “As the Black Paladin, I made it out like I was personally responsible for the wellbeing of every living thing in the universe. Every failure, every loss, every setback, I blamed myself. Then, if we weren’t making enough progress, or if I felt like our wins were too small, I’d obsess over intel and plans of attack. I stayed up at night thinking ‘Oh, I could have done this, oh, I could have done that, oh, I should be doing this,’ but… it wasn’t helping anything.”

Matt stared up at him. Shiro leaned forward and gently brushed Matt’s nose with his, then continued, “And then all of a sudden I lost everything and ended up here. And it’s made me helpless, in a lot of ways. I can’t contact my team, I can’t feel my Lion, I don’t have any clearance to do anything… yet I feel more exhausted than I ever have in my life.” Shiro paused swaying for a moment, then simply readjusted his grip and continued their slow circle around the room. “It’s made me realize that I was destroying myself, putting all that responsibility on me and me alone. After thinking about it for a while, I realize that the war – and the universe – are going to rage on whether I’m at the helm or not. We know that the kids are still fighting, and still winning. We know that the rebels have a hundred other plans besides the dreadnought. We’re still needed, and our work isn’t any less important, but we’re not alone. There are so many – _countless_ people fighting alongside us and bearing the same weight. We’re not Atlas.”

Matt tucked his head under Shiro’s chin and rested against his chest. “…You’re right,” he mumbled, blinking slowly.

Shiro rested his head on Matt’s and grinned. “I usually am.”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.”

Matt smiled.

They kept dancing for a long while, holding each other, letting themselves sway to each other’s breathing. Eventually, Shiro began humming, low and soft, tucking his nose into Matt’s hair and closing his eyes. Matt nestled further against him and gradually relaxed until he was complete deadweight.

“Matt?” Shiro murmured, stilling. “Matt…? You awake?”

A small snore answered his question.

With a pleased grin and a roll of his eyes, Shiro stooped and heaved Matt over his left shoulder in a one-armed firearm’s carry. Then, he carefully turned and stumbled his way out of the workshop towards their quarters.


	5. Day 5 - Relationship Stuff/First Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of how and why Shiro goes by "Shiro."
> 
> OR: Matt and Shiro bond over being queer and having the best families in the world.

Matt perked up when there was a knock on his dorm door.

Springing off of his bed, he hurried to the wall panel and opened it; the air seals released with a soft hiss and the metal slid upwards to reveal Dr. Laurens, the Galaxy Garrison Academy counselor, a thin, shrewd, white blonde woman who had the Pavlovian effect of making Matt tense up. Beside her, however, was a student who looked thirteen-ish and who Matt thought he recognized from some of his classes – a tall, lanky Japanese kid with dark olive skin and storm-gray eyes with hair down to the small of their back who didn’t talk much and who he never really saw outside of class. The new undercut was throwing him off. 

“Hello, Matt!” Dr. Laurens greeted, beaming her Getty Images smile. “This is Takara-” the kid flinched “-Shirogane, your new roommate. Takara, this is Matt Holt.” The kid gave him a little smile and a wave as Dr. Laurens turned back to Matt. “I thought I’d come along to help him move in and introduce you to each other.”

Matt made a point of not looking at Laurens to instead focus on Shirogane, extending his hand and trying to radiate as much confidence as he could in the face of his hot new roommate. “Hi! I heard a lot about you! I’m really excited to have you as my roommate and hope we can be friends!”

Shirogane looked at his hand for a beat and awkwardly grabbed it, but shook it firmly. “Hi. Uh… Me too,” he greeted, quietly. A faint accent hugged his vowels.

Dr. Laurens picked up a box. “There’s not a lot of luggage, so we should be done quickly and I can get out of you two’s hair,” she said with a wink.

As a team of three, they had Shirogane completely unpacked and set up within ten minutes; he only had a box full of clothes, a laptop, an astronomy calendar, a band poster, and a framed photograph of him and an older-looking man – Matt assumed he was his father – smiling mid-laughter in front of a hair salon with “私は息子が大好き！” written in pen in the corner, which he delicately set up on the nightstand beside his bed. Dr. Laurens stayed true to her word and ducked out of the room with one last smile and wave, closing the door behind her and leaving them alone.

“So what’s your real name?”

Shirogane sat down on his bed and frowned. “What do you mean?”

Matt realized too late how that sounded. He rubbed the back of his neck and frowned. “Well- I noticed she kept dead-naming you, right? And you don’t like it. So, you know, what’s your _real_ name? Your chosen name?”

“Oh.” With a heavy sigh, he slumped, letting go of the rigid tension in his shoulders and back. “I, um… I do not… have one. Yet. I just.” He shrugged, his expression falling into a frustrated pout. “I cannot choose. I prefer being called by my last name.”

Matt walked over and plopped down on the mattress beside him, making him bounce. It surprised a smile out of him to replace the pout. “Aw, that sucks. You don’t even have a nickname?”

Shirogane wrinkled his nose. “Only from my father, and I do not want other people using them.”

“Dude, you have to have _something_. You deserve that much. How about… How about, uh…” Matt looked off into the middle distance. Shirogane really wasn’t kidding about this name stuff being hard. “Well, how about just ‘Shiro’?”

Shirogane tilted his head. “Shiro…?”

Matt looked back to him with a smile. “Yeah! Just shorten your last name and boom! You have a nickname! I mean, it’s what I’m doing with ‘Matt’ instead of ‘Matthew,’ but only because I _have_ to use my first name or else everyone would be calling me a Ho.”

A bright peal of laughter bubbled out of Shirogane, making him hunch over and convulse with giggles – the sound made Matt’s heart skip a beat, then flutter.

“Yes,” Shirogane chuckled, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, “I think ‘Shiro’ will work just fine.”

Matt knocked his shoulder against his. “I’m happy for you, dude. It’s great that you’ll get to start this semester fresh.” Shiro gifted him with a genuine smile, and Matt had to look away from his eyes and desperately fight off a blush.

“The councilor mentioned that you are queer?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m super gay.” This was definitely something Matt could talk about comfortably. If it weren’t for the super cute guy sitting right next to him. Was Shiro gay? _Focus, Matthew_. “I think my parents knew ever since I was little, but I just came out to them over the summer – sorta like you, I guess? – as a, you know, official thing, and… well. I literally could not ask for better parents.” He allowed himself a moment to appreciate the warm, tingly sensation that washed over him when he remembered their loving words. “After I came out to them, I came out to our synagogue – we go to the Reform temple in Phoenix – and it was probably the most loved and supported I ever felt in my life.”

Shiro beamed. “I am so happy that you have so much support. That is _amazing_.”

Matt gestured towards the photograph on Shiro’s nightstand. “Is that your dad?”

“Yes.” Shiro reached over and grabbed the photo, resting it in his lap. Matt leaned over to get a closer look; Shiro’s father was a tall, portly man with skin a little darker than Shiro’s, with a full head of snow-white hair and a wrinkly face full of laugh-lines. “When I told him how I felt – who I was – he sat in silence for a while, then he boxed up all my clothes and took me to the mall. He replaced my entire closet and then took me to get my hair cut. We took this picture outside the salon.”

Matt pointed to the Japanese writing in the corner. “What does that say?”

Shiro blinked, and his eyes looked a little wet. He grinned. “It says, ‘I love my son.’”

“ _Aww_.” Shiro laughed and put the picture back. “We have the best families in the world, don’t we?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Hey.” Matt nudged Shiro again and met his gaze. “For what it’s worth, while you’re here, you’ll always have a supportive friend in me. If you ever need anything, I’m here for you.”

Shiro ducked his head and blushed. Hesitantly, he put his hand on Matt’s shoulder and looked at him, and Matt’s heart almost failed. “The same goes for me to you. You are so nice and so kind and I am _so_ glad I got reassigned to this dorm room.”

“You know, Shiro… I think we’re going to be pretty good friends.”

“The _best_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a little note on my "Trans Shiro" and "Jewish Holts" tags - those are universal. Shiro is trans in all my fics, and the Holts are Jewish in all my fics, whether it's alluded to or not. They're ride-or-die headcanons.


	6. Day 6 - School/Garrison Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He couldn’t lose Shiro’s friendship. Not over his stupid fantasies or false perceptions. He _couldn’t_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m gonna come right out and say that this was Not The Plan. I started writing this thing to be cute and fluffy, but after the second heavy rewrite, it ended up on the track of angsty mutual pining. Whoops ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> A definitive Big Mood for this fic is “[Neptune](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkCB4ATLCo0)” by Sleeping at Last, if that’s any warning.

“Are you _sure_ we won’t get caught?”  


“Nope!”

“You realize I don’t know how to fly this thing?”

“Yup!”

“If we get busted, does this count as treason?”

“Probably.”

“Then I’m ready.”

It was one o’clock in the morning, and the two juniors were in the Galaxy Garrison garage, dressed warmly in their school hoodies and sweatpants. Matt nodded once and planted his hands firmly on the back of Shiro’s shoulders. In a voice befitting a movie trailer announcer, he prompted, “YOLO?”

Shiro nodded in affirmation and revved the hoverbike. “YOLO,” he answered, huskily.

At that, they shot off down the underground tunnel, the air whistling past their ears, the bike roaring and rearing up. Both boys screamed and leaned forward; the blue glow of the bike’s underbelly lowered back to the ground and launched them forwards at twice their original speed. After fighting to keep their heads from snapping back, Shiro barely avoided obliterating them both on a slight curve in the tunnel, and then they both missed decapitation by inches when they blew under the rising garage door when it was only halfway open.

After that rapid series of near-death experiences, however, they were flying across the sands of the Arizona desert under the infinite night sky, the wind filling their lungs and billowing through their hair. Shiro let out a yell of triumph and howled at the moon to the sound of Matt’s hysterical laughter behind him.

It wasn’t long afterwards that Shiro finally figured out how to slow down; they continued on at a good yet manageable clip, weaving around cactuses and watching buttes and plateaus slowly roll by, casting monstrous shadows with the aid of the moon that they’d sometimes pass through, a blue wisp in the night.

Heart in his throat, Matt chanced moving his hands from Shiro’s shoulders to wrap around his middle, bracing himself against the possibility of them being pulled off. Shiro just leaned back slightly, a small affectionate gesture.

A small affectionate gesture between friends. He probably just thought Matt needed more leverage. It didn’t mean anything.

After about half an hour of soothing flying and listening to the gentle hum of the engines – as opposed to their T-rex roars from earlier – they reached the edges of the canyons. Shiro slowed them down even more until they gently drifted towards a wide open spot overlooking the biggest chasm; he brought the bike to a stop, a little clumsily, and shut it down. Matt immediately let go of him and got off.

“Something wrong?” asked Shiro, his brow furrowing as he warily swung off the bike.

Matt made a show of shaking out his legs. “My legs just fell asleep,” he replied, huffing a laugh for good measure. Shiro relaxed and smiled, then moved on to set up their blanket. Matt shook out his leg one more time before moving to help. Together, they laid out their blanket and weighed it down with stones on the corners before plopping onto it and rolling onto their backs.

They lay there, side by side, staring up at the stars. Out in the middle of the desert, the light pollution was low enough for them to see so much more than on the Garrison roof. The weather forecast had held up and the sky was clear, pristine, and absolutely brilliant.

“It’s starting,” Shiro whispered.

Matt followed his gaze up to where the first few streaks of the meteor shower were darting across the sky. Pulling the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands, he nestled down further into the blanket for warmth. “There’s something about just… lying out here and watching the stars with the naked eye that’s… I don’t know the word I’m looking for.”

Shiro glanced at him. “Poetic?”

_Romantic?_

Shutting down the rogue thought with a frown, Matt answered, “…Peaceful.”

Shiro let out a chuckle. “Yeah. Stargazing at the Garrison usually involves using equipment that’s more expensive than your entire education career’s tuition with a teacher breathing down your neck in front of the entire class.”

“We worry about so many other things while in class that we lose this – connection, reflection…”

“Hey now, don’t start going all philosophy class on me.”

“Says the guy who wrote his entire midterm paper on connecting space exploration with his spirituality.”

Shiro knocked his foot against Matt’s. “Touché.”

Matt loved this: the moon, the stars, just… space itself, ever since he was a little kid. His favorite memories as a child were when his father took him camping – being able to see the constellations stretch and arc above him, being able to catch the twinkling winks of a meteor shower – with nothing between him and the infinite, just like he was now.

And yet…

He found himself looking at Shiro. He had his arms folded behind his head and his legs akimbo. A soft smile rested on his face as he stared up at the sky, his expression one of fondness and simple adoration.

Matt wished it was directed at him.

Jerking himself out of his thoughts, he hugged himself and ripped his gaze away, trying to focus on the stars. Shiro sat up slightly and angled his head down to look at him. “You okay?” he asked, in the same tone as before.

“Just… cold.”

“Well here.” Shiro scooched himself over and pressed himself flush against Matt’s side, a solid line of contact. He worked his arm in between Matt’s and held it. “Better?”

Matt let out a shrieking, piercing, echoing scream – internally.

“Yeah,” he croaked, externally.

Shiro only did it because he thought he was cold. Shiro only did it because he was being a good friend. It didn’t mean anything. It _didn’t_.

Steeling his resolve, Matt tried to return his focus to the sky, forcing his breathing to remain slow and even. Eventually, Matt managed to focus on the stars long enough to calm down and be able to enjoy them. A grin found its way onto his face, then a smile. He took a deep breath to take in the night air and let his eyes wander over the constellations, mouthing their names as he saw them. 

When he looked over at Shiro again, he was staring at him. Their eyes locked.

The look on Shiro’s face was… unknowable. 

Matt watched as his eyes grew lidded.

As his lips parted.

As he came closer.

For one beautiful, joyous second, Matt genuinely believed that he could lean in and cup Shiro’s face in his hand, that he could ghost his lips over his lips, that he could bite down and discover what his kisses tasted like, that he could do all of these things and everything would be fine.

Only for a second.

He sat bolt upright and turned away from him, clenching his jaw. He couldn’t lose Shiro’s friendship. Not over his stupid fantasies or false perceptions. He _couldn’t_.

He listened as Shiro slowly sat up behind him. “Matt?” Shiro asked, his voice small.

Matt swallowed. “It’s getting late. We should get back.”

“I-I…”

Matt got up and began pulling up the blanket. Shiro stood to let him and took a step back. When Matt finished folding it and tucking it back into the hoverbike’s cargo department, he snuck a glance at Shiro. Shiro wouldn’t look at him, his eyes hidden in shadow.

Shiro swung his leg over the bike and sat down heavily. Matt warily climbed on behind him and placed his hands on the back of Shiro’s shoulders. Once he was secure, Shiro turned on the hoverbike and whipped them towards the Galaxy Garrison in a whirlwind of light and sand, rocketing them away into the night. Matt thought he felt his shoulders hitch.

It didn’t mean anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I'm like dropping hints that I'm in love with him." -- Takashi Shirogane
> 
> (Tomorrow's prompt is literally Domestic Fluff, so I'll make up for this, I promise.)


	7. Day 7 - Fluff/Domestic Fluff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An undercover surveillance mission goes wrong in the best way possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think... this just might be... the fluffiest thing I've ever written.
> 
> (I have another [ambiance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ddO3jPUFpg) for those of you who like that sort of thing, and while it's not _exactly_ related, I listened to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz_v9zihUrE) on repeat while I wrote this.)

Matt woke up in a tangled cocoon of his husband’s limbs – a husband who had his nose tucked against the nape of his neck and whose hacksaw snoring was making his skull vibrate. With a fond smile and a roll of his eyes, Matt began the painstaking process of extracting himself from the Shiroctopus that held him captive without waking him up. After about ten minutes of careful maneuvering that mostly involved slow-motion squirming, he was finally able to slide out from under the blankets-

With a yelp, Matt dove back into bed and burrowed under the covers, coiling around Shiro like a snake. Shiro had jolted awake at Matt’s yelp, let alone all the commotion in the bed, and was looking wildly around the room for a threat, his stump raised as if he had activated his prosthetic. “Babe, whazza matter?” he slurred.

“ _C-Cold_.”

Shiro sighed and rested his head back against the pillow. “Oh, it can’t be _that_ bad.”

With a glare, Matt whipped the covers off their torsos.

“ _Yike!_ ” Shiro barked as soon the air hit his chest; he scrambled for the edges of the blankets with his hand and hauled them back around their shoulders. Matt was laughing at him, so he aggressively kissed him to get him to shut up. He pulled away and growled, “Asshat.”

“Jerkface,” Matt chuckled, booping his nose.

“Seriously though.” Shiro gave their bedroom another once-over, taking in the complete darkness that had settled over everything. He looked over at the nightstand to see what time it was, but their alarm clock was off. “Did the power go out?”

Matt gulped and forced himself to reach out from the protective bubble of warmth into the icy air and try to turn on the lamp. It clicked, but did nothing. Darting his arm back around Shiro’s waist, he said, “Well, crap.”

Shiro looked toward the window and the sound of howling wind and gave a low groan. “I wanna check outside.”

Matt whined and tightened his hold. “ _No_ , just stay here and be my heater.”

Shiro steeled his expression into the Black Paladin Stare. “I must.”

Prying himself out of Matt’s hold, Shiro took a deep breath and then leaped out of bed. He hurried to the window and hugged himself with his left arm, immediately shivering, and used his stump to pull aside the curtain. Behind him, Matt was crocodile-rolling himself into a blanket burrito.

Just as he suspected, the dawn sky was choked with heavy gray clouds; snow was falling in giant waves, burying the ground and shrouding the forest in a colossal blanket of white. The force of the wind was making the trees bend and sway; snowdrifts danced and twirled across the landscapes like ghosts.

Shiro frowned. “W-We’re in a blizzard. It must have knocked out the power.” He leaned over and tried to peer towards the shed. “The generator must be under three feet of s-snow by now. I don’t think our target is going to be d-doing much of anything today.”

“Should we contact the others? Update them on the mission?”

Shiro frowned and shook his head. “I don’t want to risk any calls when our m-mark has nothing better to do than sit around and listen for comm traffic.”

“Meaning we’re dead,” the pile of blankets drawled.

Shiro marched towards the hope chest where his prosthetic was resting and put it on with gusto; he then threw open their closet and grabbed a silver turtleneck sweater, a pair of sweatpants, and his big fluffy cat-print socks. He put them on in under ten seconds and then grabbed a similar outfit for Matt, wadding them up and chucking them at the lump on the bed. “Meaning we’re _survivalists_ now. Come on, we can use the fireplace.”

Matt popped his head out of the blankets. “Did you remember to bring the wood in?”

Shiro stared at him blankly for a few seconds before careening out of the bedroom and into the hall. He sprinted to the living-room and skidded to a stop in front of the fireplace, looking at the wood-box – which held three logs.

He lolled his head back and breathed a huff of relief before hollering, “Yeah!”

Matt came in a few seconds later, dressed in his orange sweater – not a turtleneck, because he was _weak_ – and sweats, looking pleased. “Think you can build the fire while I build us a shelter, big guy?”

Shiro quirked an eyebrow. “A… shelter?”

Matt winked at him and patted him on the ass as he walked by. “You’ll see.”

After looking at an imaginary camera and shaking his head for a moment, Shiro stooped down and began placing the logs in a neat pyramid in the fireplace. As he got up to find some old newspapers, he watched Matt push the couch forward and move around to pull in the armchairs. Shiro grinned, raising his brows in approval, then left to begin his hunt for unneeded paper.

When he returned, Matt had fashioned a large and very impressive blanket fort, and was currently in the process of laying down their comforter on the floor and arranging all of their pillows into a nest. Shiro stooped back down in front of the fireplace and tucked the balled-up paper around the base of the logs, then activated his prosthetic and held it up to the kindling until it caught on fire, then coaxed the flames onto the logs. He deactivated his arm and sat back, beaming, until he remembered that the chimney was still closed. He quickly opened it with a turn of the dial and checked over his shoulder to see if Matt saw; he was met with a coy look and a pointed finger.

Shiro narrowed his eyes. “Shut up.”

“You shut up.”

Once the fire truly got going and illuminated the living room in warm, flickering light, the two men began bustling around the house to truly make it livable; Matt went around the rooms, setting up and lighting candles, while Shiro set up a tall oven rack over the fire and set to work melting a pot of snow. A little over an hour later, after they had enough water to use the bathroom and clean up a little, Shiro went into the kitchen and grabbed a bag of popcorn and a kettle. When he came back into the living room, Matt threw himself between him and the fire and flung out his arms with an “Aa- _aa!_ Give it here.”

Shiro took a deep breath and pouted, but he handed it over. He knew his record.

The two of them cuddled in their pillow nest as they waited for the kernels to pop, and once it was done, Shiro crawled out and used his prosthetic to take the kettle off the fire and set it down on an oven mat just outside their fort. He quickly returned to snuggle Matt; they didn’t bother to untangle themselves to eat or drink.

Once the popcorn was all gone, Matt settled himself down on Shiro’s chest and hummed in contentment, listening to soft hissing and crackling of the fire over the distant moan of the wind. He tenderly kissed the bottom of Shiro’s jaw. “You know… this isn’t too bad.”

Shiro was slowly dragging the fingertips of his prosthetic up and down Matt’s back. He squeezed his leg where it was tucked between both of his. “I can think of worse missions to be on,” he mused, pressing his nose against Matt’s.

Matt looked up at him and grinned. “Oh yeah?”

Shiro smiled, and barely managed to get out “Definitely” before Matt’s mouth had captured his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this, I hereby conclude Shatt Week. I know that technically it’s “Shatt Fortnight” now, but I only signed on for a week and college starts tomorrow. I’ve had _so much fun_ writing these seven ficlets, however, and I’m super proud of myself for finishing the week ^^ 
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed them ♥


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